Dead men’s graves

See also, Bay of Biscay Country and Crab Holes.

Definition of dead men’s graves

Applied to country generally basaltic, where, owing to the unequal decomposition of the underlying rock, humps like graves occur. – The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria, 1869.

From William Howitt’s Land, Labour, and Gold, 1853

From this place we went over a flat country with a rich soil, admirably calculated for agriculture, a fat soil, and not the picturesque, being what farmers look after. In a couple of miles, or so, we got out of the fences, but were immediately met by new difficulties in what are called Crab-holes and Dead-men’s Graves.

…

Akin to these Crab-holes are the Dead-men’s Graves. They are oblong heaps of earth distributed over certain extents of these low, volcanic plains, which for all the world present the appearance of a grave-yard. The heaps or mounds are placed almost as regularly as the squares of a chess-board. Yet not exactly ; for they are never in rows so as to allow you to pass between them. There is a heap and a hollow on every side of you, turn which ever way you will : and it is impossible to conceive the unpleasantness and difficulty of passing across them with a loaded cart. It is bounce, bang, bang, bounce all the way. Yet over them you must go, sometimes for a quarter or half a mile. I can only suppose that they are occasioned by the basaltic stones beneath having settled into that shape. Many people have been simple enough to believe them burying grounds of the natives. But the natives never did or do bury in any one particular place.